Sacred Stillness Restores Us

We like to believe we understand how life works. While we may not have a user’s guide to life our experience gives us a sense of how things fits together.

Some of us believe words can restore us. We become convinced we need to think or say or write the right words or read and hear the words of the right people. It is almost as if the right words have magic powers like an incantation.

Other people are sure we can rely on doing the right things. They believe our own decisions and actions can restore us. Acting in certain ways allows us to become our true selves.

I do not believe our words or our actions alone restore us to become particular people. Words and actions tend to make me tired and overwhelmed. I experience restoration when I practice listening to sacred stillness.

Listening to sacred stillness restores us and helps us experience wholeness again.

We close our eyes, breathe deeply, and settle into listening to sacred stillness.

Sacred Stillness Restores Us Emotionally

We live in a world where it is easy for us to feel overwhelmed. The stresses and strains of our lives fray our tempers and shake our sense of security. Simple tasks like driving in traffic or living with our families can leave us feeling frustrated and anxious.

Listening to sacred stillness gives us a way to allow things to fit back into perspective.

As we let go of distractions and urgencies we rest in the presence of something larger than we are. We gain some distance from the demands and headaches of everyday life.

Listening to sacred stillness is an opportunity to practice patience and calm. We listen without forcing ourselves to focus on each individual word, thought, or feeling. Our emotions have a chance to relax while listening to sacred stillness restores us.

Contemplative practices can help us develop more emotionally healthy connections to our lives.

Sacred Stillness Restores Us Physically

Listening to sacred stillness restores us not only emotionally, but also physically. Our contemplative practices help us relax physically as well as emotionally.

We carry in our bodies the stresses and strains we experience in our everyday lives. Exposing ourselves to stress over long periods of time contributes to serious physical illnesses.

Many people never really relax their bodies. Their sustained, relentless experiences of stress can cause damage to their essential organs and internal systems. After allowing stress to build up throughout the day they find themselves unable to get a good night’s sleep. They become more and more tired, more and more stressed.

Our practice of listening to sacred stillness is about learning how not to be distracted by our tensions. We practice being open to the deep stillness within us and in the world around us.

Practicing open listening gives us opportunities to intentionally relax our bodies. Sacred healing energy as we listen to stillness.

Contemplative practices can help us build healthier ways to live in our own bodies.

Sacred Stillness Restores Us Spiritually

Spiritual life is more than hearing and knowing and using the right words. It is not simply a checklist of what we are supposed to do and what we are supposed to avoid doing.

Our souls are drawn to a deeper, more intimate relationship with spiritual life. Spiritual life goes beyond thoughts and feelings, words and actions. As we set aside the distractions which demand our attention, spiritual life remains in the stillness.

Spiritual life is not limited to what we can understand analytically or emotionally or physically.

A contemplative practice of listening to sacred stillness allows us to connect with spiritual life in new ways. We take time to close our eyes, breathe deeply, and listen to sacred stillness.

Our practice is about our intention to consent to the presence and action of spiritual life within us. Spiritual life lives within us and into the world around us.

Sacred stillness restores us and helps us grow. Spiritual life lives in us in ways we will not recognize. We give our consent, trusting in the work of spiritual life to restore us.

Spiritual life is not a set of rules, but a relationship. Listening to sacred stillness restores us to a right relationship with spiritual life.

We listen and practice getting out of our own way. Our relationship to spiritual life is not about all the things we have learned or experienced. We listen to sacred stillness and practice becoming open to spiritual life.

Contemplative practices help us live into deep spiritual truths which are already living within us.

How Sacred Stillness Restores Us

People experience our lives as stories filled with relationships. We relate to ourselves, our physical surroundings, and the people around us. Do the stories of our lives and our relationships draw us into deeper truths? Or do we stay on the shallow surface?

The story of my life is about being drawn deeper. My relationships have not always been my own idea or my own preference. It is as if there is something or someone calling to me, pulling me forward.

Listening to sacred stillness is how I practice paying attention to what draws me deeper.

We can get turned around or lose our way. When we are not sure where we are or where we want to go listening to sacred stillness restores us.

My relationship to sacred stillness is not about my analyzing it to understand how it works. Spiritual life lives in me and in the world around me. I listen and, beyond my own understanding, am drawn into deeper stillness.

There are times when we realize we are not headed where we want to go. Listening to sacred stillness restores us to our direction and shows us our way.

Spiritual life is not a matter of earning enough points to get back in the game. We listen and sacred stillness restores us.

How will sacred stillness restore us today?

When will we take time to recognize sacred stillness restoring us this week?

Greg Richardson is a spiritual life mentor and coach in Southern California. He is a recovering attorney and a lay Oblate with New Camaldoli Hermitage near Big Sur, California. Greg’s website is StrategicMonk.com, and his email address is StrategicMonk@gmail.com.